EDITOR’S
NOTE:See
list below for local students serving on the Student Advisory Council.

NEWS

Student
Advisory Council: “Ask us about school violence”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2001

FOR INFORMATION:(312)
814-1486 or (217) 782-4648

Springfield – Who
knows better than students what other students are thinking, feeling,
and often, planning?

No
one. Including the adults who run the schools, according to the
State Board of Education’s Student Advisory Council (SAC.)

As
part of its annual report to the State Board, the SAC last week
presented an audit on school violence designed to help school
administrators garner student input on school violence, which
can then be used to help shape schools’ safety plans.

The
group of high school students from around Illinois was created
25 years ago to give the State Board advice on pertinent education
issues from a student’s perspective. About 30 juniors and seniors
comprised this year’s SAC.

The
State Board endorsed the audit and agreed to send it to every
public and private Illinois school. The SAC also asked the State
Board to provide training, funding and technical assistance to
help local districts implement the audit and any safety initiatives
that it may generate.

“I
strongly encourage schools to take advantage of this great opportunity
to see what their students think can and should be done about
school violence,” said State Superintendent Glenn W. McGee.

In
nearly all of the school shootings that have occurred in the
past 10 years, the shooter had told someone (usually other students)
about the plan to do the shootings.

Yet,
students often don’t share such information. “As much as we don’t
want to see our friends get hurt, we also don’t want to see them
go to jail,” said Josh Thackston, a senior at Eldorado High School.

“The
audit is a good way for schools to help students understand,
recognize and assume more responsibility for their own safety
at school,” McGee said.

“By
engaging them this way, we hope to change the school culture
and improve the school's learning environment,” he said.

The
audit contains five surveys. Each can be administered to students
individually or together with any or all of the others. Students
wrote each survey in in clear, uncomplicated language designed
to produce unambiguous answers.

Ideally,
students will administer the surveys to other students and school
administrators will use the information to foster and support
further dialogue and planning, Thackston said.

Not
every student is likely to be as interested or willing to share
his or her opinions as those on the SAC, who tend to be student
leaders, Thackston admitted. But the audit’s success doesn’t
require total involvement, he added.

“Everybody
and their brother doesn’t have to be behind this. There will
be five, 10, 15 people who will talk about this, be serious about
it and take it to the administration,” Thackston said.

Students
will take the audit seriously if they see adults taking it seriously,
added Eva Byerley, a junior at Lemont’s Mt. Assisi Academy.

“As
long as the administration is behind it and makes it clear that
it’s important and they want the information,” students will
participate, she said.